APWG Fax Back Phishing Education Program

In an effort to respond to a growing public threat by offline phishers that conduct various scams via fax, the Anti-phishing Working Group (APWG) has partnered with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to create the APWG Fax Back Phishing Education Program. This program is designed to provide telecommunications companies and Fax over Internet Protocol (FoIP) hosting firms with information that can be used to educate consumers about these types of scams. Offline phishing differs from traditional phishing in that it involves sending emails with attachments or direct faxes to individuals or businesses and is not done strictly online. Recipients of offline phishing scams are coerced to complete the fake documents and fax them back or be penalized.

In conjunction with IRS's Online Fraud Detection and Prevention (OFDP) group, APWG created a fax coversheet that can be downloaded by carriers and used to notify victims of offline phishing. This fax coversheet also provides links to other APWG resources which allow the victims to submit a complaint directly to the appropriate clearinghouse.

More information about the APWG Fax Back Phishing Education Program and the advisory fax coversheet can be found at the following